Saturday, 28 December 2013

Festive French Tips

During the festive period, there are a lot of events going on, which means a mixture of different outfits. If you're like me, you'll want you nails to match you outfit exactly. So, I've come up with a solution you can wear with ALL outfits and still look like you've been to the salon.. a festive french manicure!

You will need the following things:

* A pale pink nail polish (as natural as you can to your nail colour)

* A nail tip whitener

* A glitter top coat

* Nail polish remover to fix any mistakes

* Cotton pads/buds to wipe away any polish around your finger tips

* French polish guides (optional)

Firstly, coat your nails with a pale pink colour, as close to your nail colour as possible. I'm using a pale pink I got to take home after I had a manicure at a salon. However, most nail polish brands will have a shade like this, otherwise, clear nail polish will do nicely.

Next, you'll want to give your nails white tips! It does take a bit of practise to get a reasonable straight line across your nails, but keep your cotton buds at the ready in case you make any mistakes!

Here I'm using Rimmel London's nail tip whitener. I find the easiest way to do this is if I tilt the brush horizontally and drag it across my nail, covering the natural white tips of my nails.

If you find if difficult to do this, I found some french tip guide stickers in a Pharmacy last year. It comes with strips of stickers you put across your nail to give you a guide when painting on your white tip. I used these constantly when I was practising doing my nails myself.

After painting your nails, take off the sticker and you'll be left with a perfect white tip!

Finally, paint over your nails with a glitter polish. I find the consistency of glitter polish is a lot thicker than a clear top coat, which means it'll last on your nails a lot longer without chipping. I used Rimmel London's I love lasting finish polish in Disco Ball.

Of course, you can vary the ways you apply the glitter top coat. You can have a signature nail, cover all your nails (like I've done), or paint over only the white tips!

So there you go, festive nails to match any outfit over the Christmas and New Year period!